Guru

Reviewer: Marc Barrite
Rating (out of 5): ****

In his first feature, French director Louis Malle struck cinematic gold with this film noir, an adaptation of a novel by Noel Calef. There are many faces appearing here who would become fixtures in French cinema but it's the lovely Jeanne Moreau who leaves the most indellible impression; she gives a stand-out performance as the bourgeois Florence Carala helplessly wandering the streets of Paris at night in search of her lover. Moreau's travels are masterfully captured by cinematographer Henri Decae, who employs many of the groundbreaking, budget-conscious techniques that would be used more overtly in the subsequent French new wave movement, including the sole use of available light, which in this film results in a beautiful array of natural shadows cast about in each scene.

Elevator's success and timelessness was further sealed by having jazz trumpet legend Miles Davis perform the unforgettable soundtrack. The improvised score is a shining example of the cool and seductive sound Davis purveyed during the rise of his career. The spare instrumentation and smoky atmosphere of the recordings are hypnotic, complementing the film perfectly.

Though nearing its 50th birthday, Elevator holds up with the best of its contemporaries. The pacing and plot complexities will keep today's less-than-patient viewer attentive, there's enough isolation and paranoia to satiate even the most hardened Hitchcock and noir fans, and the screenplay (by Malle and Roger Nimier) is at once sharp, romantic and political. The Criterion bonus disc offers interviews with Malle and Moreau from 1975 and 2005 respectively, rare footage of Miles Davis performing the soundtrack, and Malle's rarely seen film school short, Crazeologie, to boot.

As we reach the (can it be five years already) fifth anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, films can be useful for those seeking meaning, if not answers, and reflection. A host of films, both documentary and feature, have since been released - and will likely continue. Even the imperfect ones add good fodder for discussion; here are a good number of them:

• 9/11 ***½
• Fahrenheit 911 *** (and we should mention the anti-Michael Moore film Fahren-HYPE 911 - though they're both biased in their way, and Moore deserves some skewering, the latter is also pretty sloppily made and not particularly convincing)
• 11'09"01: September 11 ****
• Afghan Stories ***½
• Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11 ***
• Brothers...On Holy Ground ***
• Hijacking Catastrophe ***
• Power & Terror: Noam Chomsky In Our Times ***½
• 7 Days in September ***
• United 93 ****
• WTC View ***
• WTC: The First 24 Hours **½
• The Great New Wonderful **½

Reviewer: Alex Brinkman
Rating (out of 5): ****

If there were to be established a genre of movies involving the angst-mongering nature of post-college malaise (ignoramus that I am, there may well be), Kicking And Screaming would easily shoot to the top of the list, alongside The Graduate and possibly Garden State. The old Lit. 101 term for this type of story is a Bildungsroman, or, for the unpretentious non-Germanophile, a maturation story. Noah Baumbach�s (The Squid and the Whale) debut effort (as a writer and director) perfectly captures the "Now what?" feeling of life after college, both through his sharp writing and a very solid ensemble cast. Criterion's new DVD for the film is a welcome, quirky addition to their library.

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): **** ½

With Paul Verhoeven's new film, Black Book, also centered around the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, and his first film shot in his native country in decades [read David D'Arcy's review of the film which premiered in Toronto], it seemed a good time to revisit Soldier of Orange.

Epic in length and scope, but also a character-driven piece, Verhoeven's masterfully entertaining WWII film Soldier of Orange is the most polished of his early Dutch films (though the more subversive The 4th Man is perhaps his sharpest). It makes it all the more apparent how far he eventually fell in his more recent Hollywood forays (B-movie masterpiece RoboCop notwithstanding). Soldier also catapulted Rutger Hauer to stardom, charismatically playing real life heroic (and, eventually, flying) Dutchman Eric Lanshof, a bit of an anti-hero who was initially apolitical during WWII but eventually found himself figthting in the resistance after Holland was overtaken by the Germans. The recognizable, always solid Jeroen Krabbe plays Lanshof's longtime friend who gets caught up along with him in trying to save the country they love, long after their Queen (whom they eventually meet) has fled to England.

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): **½

A British man wakes up one morning on a subway in Brooklyn with a headache and no memory of who he is. His backpack contains a few odds and ends but no identification. He turns himself into the police who
send him to a psychiatric ward where he's told he can't leave until someone recognizes him and picks him up. Eventually a woman he dated briefly (who doesn't seem to care much for him) comes to collect him. He arrives to his enormous Manhattan loft where he slowly excavates hundreds of hours of videotapes that make up his forgotten life. He learns his name is Doug Bruce. He's rich, well-traveled and after visiting a procession of neurologists, endocrinologists and psychologists he learns no one can conclusively state where his memory has gone.

Rupert Murray's occasionally fascinating but uneven documentary Unknown White Male asks the questions, What does memory loss feel like and how can a person reconstruct their life based on moments filtered through a camera? It's a noble ambition but these ideas seem fairly out of the reach of a director who asks three different times in voiceover whether or not he and his former friend - Douglas Bruce, the subject of the film - will still like each other.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): **½ (your rating may rise according to your knowledge of Russia and classical music)

Sonata For Viola presumes an immense amount of knowledge on the part of the viewer regarding - for starters - Dmitri Shostakovich and Russian history. Since this 75-minute documentary supposedly covers the life of the famous composer, I expected a certain level of "groundwork" information that would lead me into an understanding and appreciation of Shostakovich and the world in which he lived. While the movie will not deliver this to the uninitiated, that's not to say it isn't a somewhat enjoyable experience - particularly if you are familiar with the films of Alexander Sokurov (Father & Son, Russian Ark), who, via editing, shaped the work of the original filmmaker Semyon Aranovich into his own more elliptical, impressionistic view.

Reviewer: Julie Newcomb
Rating (out of 5): ***½

In its earnest and slightly romanticized treatment of teens, Take Care of My Cat may at first remind you of a Korean Say Anything, but delves even further into the question of what happens just after high school graduation - do you escape your home town, or start settling down there, follow your dreams or earn a living, stay in touch with your high school friends or let them go? The film's core is the shifting relationship between Hae-joo, determined to succeed in the business world of Seoul, Tae-hee, already at work for the family business, and Ji-young, a talented outsider who seems just about to slip through the cracks. Buoyed by some beautifully saturated photography and something of a happy ending, the film nevertheless keeps an eye on the social and economic realities the girls face (it also boasts one of the more poignant Dance Dance Revolution scenes you're likely to see on film). Winner of several festival awards and anchored by a terrific performance by Du-na Bae as Tae-hee, Take Care of My Cat is an undiscovered gem.

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ****

If Peter Weir (of the early variety) had channeled Sam Peckinpah he might have conspired to
produce something like The Proposition, John Hillcoat's Aussie meta-Western, a bleak and violent parable as mesmerizing as it is disturbing. In short, don't miss it. It's also exactly the kind of film you'd expect to have been written by musician Nick Cave - poetic, gloomy, gritty and as often brilliant as pretentious. Set in the harsh realm of the Australian outback of the late 19th century, an even more inhospitable land than the American west's desert terrain, where the parched land and cruel sun do damage to men's psyches.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

Ritual is primary to the sensual drama La Petite Jerusalem, as is fundamentalist thinking. This second film by writer/director Karin Albou (her first was made for French TV) begins with the Jewish ritual of tossing crumbs into the river as a symbolic way to part with one's sins. A family of Tunisian Jews have settled in France, living in the banlieue known by the movie’s title, and now that the father is dead, the son-in-law has taken over as head of the family. The movie centers around his wife, played by Elsa Zylberstein (Mina Tannenbaum, Farinelli), and her younger sister (Fanny Valette) and the slight plot revolves around the former's struggles to sexually please her straying husband, while the sister's drawn equally to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and the face and body of immigrant Muslim journalist.

When the Jewish family rejects the Muslim and his family rejects the Jew, what's a young girl to do? Not much, as it turns out, but enough, at least, to keep foreign film fans alert. Albou is as yet no great shakes as a writer (everything is set up in obvious fashion, and the dialog is just okay), but she possesses a nice visual sense. Her romantic/sex scenes are shot in extreme close-up, as the camera twists and turns as if it were "the other," and her "take" on family and school life seems lived-in and believable. If Valette's Laura appears a bit too quick to forsake philosophy, and her sister Mathilde turns out to be a quicker-than-normal learner of the sexual arts, we can forgive them - for the interesting religious rituals on display and the sadly typical, set-in-stone thinking of the fundamentalist families in this modern-day, halfway-to-Romeo and Juliet tale.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Gloomy Sunday, an alternately dark and gorgeous German bouquet, provides as much romance, glamour and ambience as you’re likely to find from any movie in the past decade (maybe two). Taking place in Hungary pre-, during and post-WWII, it spins a fictional tale from the popular song of the day giving the film its title. The song - a marvelous combo of melody, schmaltz and angst - evidently sparked a spate of suicides internationally, and director/co-writer Rolf Schëbel jumps off from this bit of history to create a love-and-war tale of three men and the woman who changes their lives.

Reviewer: Alex Brinkman
Rating (out of 5): ***

If you live in San Francisco or are a fan of movies taking place here, then you're obligated to check out The Laughing Policeman. If you're a Walter Matthau fan (which means you like men with permanent grimaces; hint: the title is meant to be ironic) this is a must-see. Watching too many hard-boiled thriller-type movies after say, 1980, might cause you to lose your patience while watching Matthau doggedly chase down (this may be hyperbolizing his velocity) an unknown assailant who killed nine people on a bus (the venerable 14-Mission to be precise). The pace might be a little slow if break-neck speed is in your list of criteria for enjoying a good cop-flick, but this is easily forgiven based on the fact that reality is better reflected here (the bouquet of cynicism is delightful, especially given the period). You'll find none of the convenient plot-points that skip over the hum-drum of actually attempting to solve a case which doesn't involve fantastical and far-fetched revelations, all usually adding up to wondering why actual detective work seems so inefficient.

To be eligible, send an email to contest@greencine.com, including your name, email address and, if you're a GreenCine member, your username in the email, and "Russian Dolls/Sex Addict" in the subject header. Winners will be selected at random from all entries. The deadline is Friday, September 29, at 12PM PST. Winners will be notified by e-mail and announced in future editions of the GreenCine Dispatch newsletter.

Reviewer: Erin Donovan
Rating (out of 5): **** for both

Both Winter Soldier and The Police Tapes were made cinema verite style by film-making teams (Winter Solider by a 19-person collective, The Police Tapes by husband and wife team Alan and Susan Raymond). When viewed together the films provide a time capsule into the tail-end of a period of social upheaval in America, but also two unique voices about the destruction wrought by moral indifference and national ennui. In the case of Winter Soldier it's a "blank check" approach to a poorly strategized war against a misunderstood enemy; in Police Tapes it's the cycle of unrelenting brutality that flourishes when poverty goes ignored.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

Moviegoers tempted to venture into a theatre to take a look at the Tony Goldwyn/Paul Haggis remake of The Last Kiss ought to be sure they see the original Italian version first. Superior in every way, this 2001 gem was writer/director Gabriele Muccino's international breakout, capturing better than most films (from any country) that scary period when men approaching thirty start settling into permanent relationships. We see this via the lives of four friends (and their women) in various states of pre- and post-marital bliss (or something less), as well as the parents of one of the women. The movie is by turns funny, surprising, moving and incisive, as it looks at relationships from many angles. It sees the reasons to hold on to what we have and build on it, but it also acknowledges how difficult this is, given our innate sense of selfishness and hypocrisy.